Severn School is a private, coeducational college preparatory day school for students in preschool through grade twelve, located in Severna Park, MD. We believe in character-driven education and academic excellence fostered by a supportive community that values the dignity, self-worth, and the potential of each individual.

We want every family to understand the whole Severn story before making their choice. Part of our mission is to know and value each and every member of our community. And even if you’re only thinking about applying to Severn, we count you as part of that community. Our admissions experience is built so you get every angle on Severn and we learn more about you through each step.

Submit an application to begin your Severn story. Applications for admission to all grades are now being accepted.

Every student learns in their own unique way and we offer structured support to help them pave their path to academic success. At the Hoehn-Saric Family Center for Academic Excellence (Learning Resource Center) Severn students develop effective learning skills and strategies, but also a greater self-awareness and confidence in their own ability to learn and grow.

We seek to provide every student with tools to navigate the vast landscape of information beyond our library doors. We provide the very best in relevant online and print materials, curated to meet the academic, creative and personal interests of students and faculty here at Severn.

One of Severn School's defining strengths is its programs in the arts: visual, musical, and dramatic. The level of instruction, of student involvement, and of student achievement, all set the program apart and the range of opportunities available means that every talent finds a place for expression.

The importance of integrity, sportsmanship and personal excellence in a competitive environment are at the core of our athletic program. Every lacrosse game, tennis match, and sailing competition is a learning lab. Through them, our students learn to commit; to work toward long-term goals, make good decisions, and even as the pressure mounts, play with their whole hearts.

Come visit our School store, The Admiral's Collection. Located in the lobby of the Edward St. John Athletic Center, The Admiral's Collection offers a wide-array of Admirals clothing, spirit gear, and gift items for the whole family.

Situated along the Severn River and close to the Chesapeake Bay, our location offers an opportunity to challenge students to examine, debate, and discuss issues of ecological preservation. The James M. Stine Environmental Center is a nearly 3-acre parcel of land behind Teel Campus where our students make authentic connections with the local ecosystem and experience the benefits that nature brings to our physical and mental health.

Severn School seeks to challenge the thinking of students and educators, to provide a space for exploration and leadership opportunities. Innovative and entrepreneurial ideas don't just happen; they require work and persistence as failure is a part of the process.

Your gift to the Severn Annual Fund makes unique learning opportunities possible. From attracting and retaining the best faculty to providing state-of-the-art resources to support scholarship, innovation and creativity, you — together with hundreds of other parents, alumni, faculty and friends — play a key role in enriching the educational experience for all Severn students.

Our students explore and find purpose. They create and inspire. They dare to fail, they triumph, and seize boundless opportunities. And they do so through your generosity. You bring alive our mission of character, conduct and scholarship for each new generation of students. You make it possible for every Severn student to be an Admiral.

STEM

Middle Schoolers Use Design Thinking to Help Severn Kindergarten

Each quarter our Middle School Innovative Design Challenges students take on engineering projects to solve real-world problems. With no blueprint to follow and no examples to copy, they work through the entire design process from conception to completion, tackling projects of all shapes and sizes. Last quarter, starting with nothing more than a list of possible components, our design challengers built a mobile classroom cart for Severn’s kindergarten students. Building upon skills learned in the 6th-grade Introduction to Design Thinking course, our students scaled their ideas and employed new strategies to imagine, create, and iterate their way towards making a real product for a real audience.

Big Ideas, Big Compromise

The idea for this particular project came from a casual conversation between Middle School science teacher Ms. Carrie Ball and kindergarten teacher Ms. Emily Coogan. Ms. Coogan was looking for some type of mobile classroom that she and her students could take outside or to other parts of the school. Ms. Ball suggested that this would be a perfect fit for her design challenge class — a real challenge for a real audience and one that requires ingenuity and perseverance.

Using Severn’s design thinking methodology as their guide, our students asked questions to explore every possible feature that could work for the mobile classroom. With each idea they constantly revisited their goal and the needs of their audience. Every idea had to make sense for a class of five-year-old students. They had to consider size, weight, types of tools to include and even the environment in which it would be used.

Should it have wheels?

Should it be a cart? Or a wagon?

Does it need handles? Will it be pushed or pulled?

Who will be using it and where?

They drew their ideas on the whiteboard and as a class, critiqued each one for possible benefits and drawbacks. They narrowed the possibilities to the most essential and that which could be accomplished with available resources in the time allotted. At the end of this phase, the group decided to build a wooden cart with wheels that had built-in sections for tools like pencils and scissors. The front of the cart would be covered in whiteboard paint and the bottom would house custom clipboards for each kindergarten student — a large undertaking for any team!The finished product complete with built-in sections for scissors and pencils, microscopes, clipboards, and a whiteboard working space.

Room to Fail and Try Again

Once the group settled on an overall design, our middle schoolers drew plans for how to put it together. From choosing which materials to use to how to assemble them, our students took the lead in transforming their sketches into a real tangible product. They measured and cut the wood, used Tinkercad and the 3D printer to create the built-in elements, assembled the wheels, and painted. This part of the project took a lot of experimentation, patience, and advanced collaboration skills. Ms. Ball was careful to offer guidance when needed, while also giving our students the room to try ideas, fail, and try again.Measure twice, cut once!

“This always happens with the design process. You come up with these big ideas during the imagine phase, but then you have to think realistically about what you can actually do. One of the most important lessons here is perseverance. You just have to try something and see. It may not be exactly what you sketched so you have to modify and improve it. That’s what I want them to learn, that things can take a different direction and that’s ok.” — Ms. Carrie Ball

A Special Surprise for Our Kindergarteners

Ms. Coogan and Ms. Schubert’s kindergarten classes visited Teel Campus for the big reveal. Our budding engineers presented the features of the cart but also talked about the process of putting it together. You could see the excitement in our kindergarten students' eyes as they listened to their older peers’ experiences. As a final culminating activity, our middle schoolers surprised the kindergarteners with a special collaborative design project. Working in small groups, they showed them how to design personalized clipboards using iPads and the laser cutter.It was a group effort to create the custom designs to cut into the clipboards in the Collaborate Space of the Graw Innovation Center.After creating their designs, our kindergarteners could see their ideas come to life!

Purpose Matters

A sense of purpose is critical to truly engage with the design process. When students create something for an authentic audience they have an intrinsic motivation to succeed and become very invested in their work. It’s no longer about getting a good grade, it’s about making something they can be proud of and that will benefit others. Throughout the entire process, our Innovative Design Challenges students stretched the bounds of their creative, technical and collaboration skills. We can’t wait to see what they do next.